De Blasio elicits support for Albany agenda from Cuomo ally

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday implored members of 1199SEIU to rally in support of his agenda when they travel to Albany next week.

The mayor, speaking in Brooklyn at the 1199SEIU and League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes Health Care Reform 2.0 Conference, asked the members, who are traveling to Albany on Tuesday, to support his plan for rent stabilization, his proposal to alter the 421-a tax program and support his call for mayoral control of education.

Story Continued Below

All three issues pit the mayor against Governor Andrew Cuomo, another staunch ally of 1199, the largest health care union in the state.

“Albany is not necessarily a place that gets to the right decision on its own,” de Blasio said. “Sometimes they need to hear the voice of the people. … We need your voices.”

The union has been one of the mayor's most vocal and consistent supporters.

Its president, George Gresham, introduced the mayor by saying he deserved high marks for his first 18 months in office, and criticized a recent New York Times piece that suggested de Blasio was losing support among African Americans.

Gresham, who is African American, called it a “hit job” and said he must not have been “the angry negro the Times was looking for” because his comments were left out of the story.

"Our article offered a balanced look at a gathering of black leaders, including supporters of the Mayor, who met to discuss frustration over how the Mayor has handled specific issues," a Times spokeswoman said in an email. "I encourage anyone calling it a hit job to read it."

De Blasio took the stage and told the friendly crowd that his own past accomplishments were not enough. More work needed to be done, he said, to reduce inequality.

The mayor first touted his plan for rent regulations, which he wants to extend.

“There are some in Albany who say let's just get rid of them,” de Blasio said. “Do you know how many people would be out on the street in just a year or two if that were happen?”

The mayor said it is not enough to renew rent regulations. The law must be strengthened to protect apartments from becoming market rate.

Cuomo is planning a rally Thursday in support of tougher rent regulations but his plan does not call for ending vacancy decontrol, which allows apartments to leave rent regulations when they become vacant and the rent is above $2,500.

Instead, the governor says the threshold should be raised to $2,700 per month.

De Blasio then touched on 421-a, a program that provides tax breaks for developers that the mayor says once made sense but has become outmoded.

Nowhere have the mayor and governor clashed more visibly than over the future of this program.

The mayor's plan would allow developers to continue to receive tax breaks if they provided affordable housing. There would be no tax breaks for luxury condominiums and the mayor supports a mansion tax on apartments worth more than $1.75 million or more.

“It's not right to give tax breaks anymore unless we get affordable housing,” de Blasio said. “Brothers and sisters, I'll say this so simply that any one in Albany can understand. No tax breaks without affordable housing.”

Cuomo has not supported the mayor's plan because it does not provide a prevailing wage to construction workers, something de Blasio says would raise the cost of construction thereby limiting the number of affordable units.

The mayor concluded with a plea to support his plan for mayoral control, saying without it he could never have enacted his universal pre-K plan.

“If I didn't have mayoral control of education, we would never have been able to achieve those pre-K seats,” de Blasio said.

De Blasio tied all three proposals to theme of income inequality, which he said remains the city's most pressing challenge.

“We're living in a deeply unequal society,” de Blasio said. “Now we have a moment of decision. A lot is going to happen in Albany in just the next couple of weeks.”